Message: ""Beary" names" - Behind the Name

[Facts] "Beary" names

by M.Selenika

3/15/2021, 3:51 AM

Good morning/afternoon/evening. I am writing this message because I have a question.
I have observed that in several European cultures exist na,es meaning "bear":
Björn and Bjørn (Scandinavian)
Bear (English)
Ursus, Ursa, Ursula (Latin and Medieval Latin)
Orso, Orsa, Ursula (archaic Italian)
There also are names compounded by these ones and other elements, such as Asbjörn and Arthur.
I am asking you why people used and are used to name their children after bears, which were considered scary animals in several cultures.
Thank you to the ones who will answer.

You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right. ~Marie Curie
��My name list: behindthename.com/pnl/223545 �

This message was edited 3/15/2021, 3:52 AM

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- Anneza +3

3/15/2021, 7:51 AM

Bears walk, or can walk, on their hind legs like people. They are attractive looking, very powerful and more than able to look after themselves. These are all positive attributes in our world, and must have been more so in the more dangerous, lawless societies of the European past. Naming a child after an animal like a bear might have been thought to give the child semi-magical protection as well.

- M.Selenika +2

3/16/2021, 4:09 AM

Thank you for this information.
Also, now I remember that poet Virgil liked defining himself as a bear mother, because it refines the fetus before making it born. Virgil's fetus were its writings.

- thegriffon +1

3/18/2021, 3:57 PM

Several animals such as bears were also what we would now term "totemic". Bears in most of Europe would have been the king of the beasts, and were used poetically as a metaphor for "warrior"

- M.Selenika

3/19/2021, 1:37 AM

Thank you too.

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